PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) continues to ban players for cheating. In the latest development, the governing body of the game’s European e-sports league has banned 12 professional players. Although the organization did not say exactly how they cheated, it’s widely being reported that they were using the PUBG radar hack.
PUBG bans more pros
PUBG Esports, the governing body of the PUBG Europe League, said it caught the professional players using an “unauthorized program” which allowed them to cheat in the public and competitive online game. Overall, 10 players have been banned from the e-sports competition, most likely for using the PUBG radar hack. Two other players are being punished for knowing and not reporting that their teammates were cheating. Some of the players banned for cheating in public games face a two-year suspension, while others are facing a three-year ban for cheating in the PUBG Europe League qualifiers.
Two members of the French team Sans Domicile Fixe were reportedly caught cheating, while the other two are being punished for supporting them. Since all the players from Sans Domicile are facing a three-year ban, the team will lose its spot in the Challengers competition until they find replacements. Two other teams — the Red Diamonds and Pittsburgh Knights — also need to replace players.
“Cheating in a professional competition is one of the least sportsmanlike behavior that a pro player can exhibit,” PUBG Esports said in a statement. “So we are issuing one of the severest penalties we have ever issued, in order to match our zero tolerance policy on cheating.”
What is the PUBG radar hack?
Although the governing body did not reveal the type of program the players used to cheat, it is believed that the cheat was a so-called “radar hack.” Such programs are hard to detect and enable the user to track their opponents on the game map.
Several third-party programs can be used to gain unfair advantages in the game, like reducing damage or automatically aiming. However, such programs, unlike the PUBG radar hack, are relatively easy to identify. The PUBG radar hack uses a virtual private network to track opponents instead of game files.
Before banning these 12 players, PUBG Corp banned four other professional gamers for three years. The four players were from the following teams: Reapers, Totality, Death Row and Almost. Other than these professional players, PUBG has banned over 30,000 players for the cheat since it began its investigation in December. PUBG first started banning players in June 2017. So far, the gaming company has banned about 13 million players.
To limit such incidents in the future, PUBG Corp says professional players will be subjected to “comprehensive” background checks of their accounts. A player “with incriminating evidence of having used an unauthorized program will be suspended and prevented from competing,” the company said.
PUBG uses the BattlEye software, which is an anti-cheat protection system. The system proactively detects and bans accounts which use unethical techniques to gain unfair advantages in the game and competition.
PUBG Mobile tournament in India
Despite the PUBG radar hack, the popularity of the game and its competitions is showing no signs of slowing. Rather, it is increasing, and now there will be a PUBG Mobile tournament in India. Smartphone maker Oppo will sponsor it. According to Tencent Games, PUBG Mobile has been downloaded over 200 million times and has more than 30 million daily active users on both iOS and Android. This number doesn’t include console players or PC accounts, which are generally used for competitions.
Like with any competition, a big attraction of the competition for the mobile version of the game is the prize money. The tournament features a massive prize pool of INR 1 crore (about $142,000). There will be cash prizes for the top 10 teams and several individual awards. The winning team will get INR 30,00,000, the runner-up will get INR 10,00,000, and the team in third place will get INR 5,00,000.
The competition is called the PUBG MOBILE India Series 2019. It will be a national-level tournament and will be open to anyone in the country. The PUBG Mobile tournament will continue for three months and includes four stages.
Currently, the tournament is in the registration stage, and it will be open until Jan. 23. The next stage is the in-game qualifier, which will run Jan. 21-28. After the qualifiers, about 2,000 players will move to stage three, which will be the Online Playoffs. The third stage is scheduled from Feb. 9- 24. After stage three, only 20 players will move to the Grand Finals. The final stage will be a one-day event scheduled for March 10.
